Cubans sneaking into digital world

Web access, cell-phone cameras and more shake the government's control of information.

March 9, 2008|By James C. McKinley Jr., The New York Times

HAVANA -- A growing underground network of young people armed with computer memory sticks, digital cameras and clandestine Internet hookups has been mounting some challenges to the Cuban government in recent months, spreading news the official state media try to suppress.

Last month, students at a prestigious computer-science university videotaped an ugly confrontation they had with Ricardo AlarcM-sn, the president of the National Assembly. AlarcM-sn seemed flummoxed when students grilled him on why they could not travel abroad, stay at hotels, earn better wages or use search engines such as Google. The video spread like wildfire through Havana and seriously damaged AlarcM-sn's reputation in some circles.

Something similar happened in January when officials tried to impose a tax on the tips and wages of employees of foreign companies. Workers erupted in jeers and shouts when told about the new tax, a moment caught on a cell-phone camera.

"It passes from flash drive to flash drive," said Ariel, 33, a computer programmer who asked that his last name not be used for fear of political persecution. "This is going to get out of the government's hands because the technology is moving so rapidly."

Cuban officials have long limited the public's access to the Internet and digital videos, tearing down unauthorized satellite dishes and limiting the number of Internet cafes open to Cubans. Only one Internet cafe remains open in Old Havana.

Hidden in a small room in the depths of the Capitol building, the state-owned cafe charges a third of the average monthly salary -- about $5 -- to use a computer for an hour.

The other two former Internet cafes in central Havana have been converted into "postal services" that let Cubans send e-mail over a closed network on the island with no links to the Internet.

Yet attempts to control access are increasingly ineffective. Young people say there is a black market giving thousands of people an underground connection to the world.

People who have smuggled in satellite dishes provide illegal Internet connections for a fee or download movies to sell on discs. Others exploit the connections to the Web of foreign businesses and state-run enterprises. Employees with the ability to connect to the Internet often sell their passwords and ID numbers.

Hotels catering to tourists provide Internet services, and Cubans also exploit those conduits to the Web.

Even the top computer-science school, the University of Information Sciences, has become a hotbed of cyber-rebels. Students download everything from the latest American television shows to articles and videos criticizing the government, and pass them quickly around the island.